My provincial “free” plan covers doctors visits, treatment if hospitalized (including ward costs and a vast majority of treatments and drugs while inside.) It also allows for limited access to secondary treatments (ie physio) but the waiting list for free treatment can be quite long.

Example: my spouse fell had hurt his knee while on the job. He’s talked to a nurse via a health call centre, visited his doctor and has an MRI scheduled – none of which will cost him a penny.

My private plan, the premiums of which are largely paid by my employer, covers a good percentage of out-of-hospital costs (drugs, vision, private physio, etc) for myself, my spouse and other dependents (if they were any) If my spouse need physio, this plan will cover about 80% of the cost to a yearly max.

Still, if I lost the job tomorrow, the provincial plan is a good support system – you’ll never find us sitting in Admitting with an Admin demanding to know how we’ll pay before we’re treated. (But they do get tetchy if you don’t bring your provincial health card with you!)

This should work especially well, since so many of the BCBS companies have outsourced their claims processing. This will give the executives the chance to bang on their service providers for damaging the reputation of BCBS.

@squishyalt: Well, for starters, because each state has its own regulations and prohibitions on where and how you can do business. So one company couldn’t do it – it’d have to be several, probably closer to 50 corporations than one.